Things to Do in Paris in 2026: Prices, Free Days and Tips for Canadians

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We read every price, opening time, rule, travel advisory and mobile network in this guide on 27 October 2026. Our sources are the official websites of the venues, the Paris Museum Pass, tourist offices, Canadian carriers, the Government of Canada and our own France plan page. Prices and hours change, so check the official page before you book.

Canadians pay the non-European rate at several Paris sights in 2026

Several national sites now charge more to visitors from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which is the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Canadians who are not EEA citizens or residents pay the higher rate. The new prices started on 12 January 2026 at Sainte-Chapelle and on 14 January at the Louvre and Versailles.

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Buy only on each site's official ticket page. The Louvre warns of copycat ticket websites and street sellers, and says it can refuse entry to anyone holding their tickets.

When the Paris Museum Pass is worth it

The Paris Museum Pass covers more than 50 museums and monuments. They include the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée de l'Orangerie, Sainte-Chapelle, the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre-Dame towers and Versailles. It costs €85 for 2 days, €105 for 4 days and €125 for 6 days, counted in hours from your first visit.

The pass site says the 2-day pass saves money, on average, from the fourth visit. It also says the pass is worth buying from age 18 for visitors who live outside the EU. It does not replace time slots: pass holders still book a free slot for the Louvre, the Orsay, the Orangerie, the Versailles palace, Sainte-Chapelle and the Notre-Dame towers.

Twelve things to do in Paris on a first visit

Each pick has the facts you need before you go. Notre-Dame, its towers and Sainte-Chapelle share the Île de la Cité, so they fit in one day.

1. The Louvre. Louvre tickets cost €32 for Canadian adults. Book them on the museum's own ticket site, ticket.louvre.fr. The museum is closed on Tuesdays, opens at 9 a.m. and stays open until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, with last entry an hour before closing. It recommends a time slot for every visitor, free visitors included.
2. Notre-Dame Cathedral. Notre-Dame reopened in December 2024, and entry is free with no ticket. A free time slot is optional but cuts the wait at busy times. Book it only on the cathedral's official site, and never pay a website or a street seller for entry.
3. The Notre-Dame towers. The climb is 424 steps with no lift, ending at a 360-degree view from the south tower, 69 metres up. Tickets cost €16, are sold online only and need a time slot. From October to March the towers open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with last entry an hour before closing.
4. Sainte-Chapelle. King Louis IX had this chapel built in his palace on the Île de la Cité, next to Notre-Dame. Its 15 tall windows, two-thirds of them medieval, show 1,113 scenes. It now sits inside the Palais de Justice, so security is strict: knives, scissors and glass bottles are banned, and there is nowhere to leave them. Arrive at your booked time, not before.
5. The Eiffel Tower. Book tickets on the tower's official website, toureiffel.paris, which the City of Paris names as the official site. An adult ticket to the top by lift costs €36.70. From nightfall, 20,000 bulbs make the tower sparkle for five minutes at the start of each hour, until midnight or 1 a.m. depending on the season. You can watch it free from anywhere it is in sight.
6. A Seine cruise. Vedettes du Pont Neuf leaves from Square du Vert-Galant, at the tip of the Île de la Cité. Its one-hour cruise runs by day or night with a live guide in French and English. Adult tickets cost €17, or €15 online.
7. The Arc de Triomphe. Reach it through the Passage du Souvenir underpass from the Champs-Élysées or Avenue de la Grande-Armée, then climb to the terrace. The lift has been out of service since late July 2026, so the only way up is 284 steps. The monument says the lift will return in 2027, on a date still to be announced. From October to March it opens from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., and from 11 a.m. on Tuesdays, with last entry 45 minutes before closing. Access to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is free.
8. Palais Garnier. A self-guided visit of the opera house takes about 90 minutes and covers its public areas, including the Grand Foyer and the auditorium with Marc Chagall's ceiling. Canadian adults pay €25 and children 12 and under go free. Tickets are sold online only, up to 30 days ahead, and never on site. Rehearsals often close the auditorium without warning, and the opera says no ticket guarantees access to it.
9. Montmartre and Sacré-Coeur. The basilica is free to visit and open every day from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. For the view across Paris, climb its dome, which is a separate visit.
10. The Musée Carnavalet. The oldest City of Paris museum tells the city's history, and its permanent collections are free with no booking. It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 23 rue Madame de Sévigné.
11. The Jardin du Luxembourg. The Senate's garden has free chess, basketball and sandpits, plus paid fun for children: ponies, a merry-go-round, toy sailboats, swings and a puppet theatre.
12. Versailles. Take RER C to Versailles Château Rive Gauche, a 10-minute walk from the palace, with a return ticket or a pass such as Navigo or Paris Visite. In the low season, the palace opens from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and closes on Mondays, and the gardens are free. The Passport, the only ticket with a fixed palace time slot, costs Canadian adults €25 from 1 November to 31 March. If you enter the palace from 3 p.m. in that season, a late-entry Passport costs €18.

Free things to do in Paris, all year and on set days

Several top sights are free every day they open. They are Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Sacré-Coeur basilica, the Musée Carnavalet's permanent collections, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre's Tuileries Garden.

Others are free on set days. Sainte-Chapelle, the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre-Dame towers are free on the first Sunday of January, February, March, November and December. Versailles is free on the first Sunday of each month from December to March, and the Louvre is free after 6 p.m. on the first Friday of each month, except in July and August.

Free days still need planning. Versailles and the Notre-Dame towers require a booked time slot even then, and the towers cap the free tickets in each slot.

Paris with kids: free entry under 18 and park days

Children and teens under 18 get in free at the Louvre, Versailles, Sainte-Chapelle, the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre-Dame towers. Versailles still asks them to book a time slot for the palace. At Palais Garnier, children 12 and under go free, and visitors aged 13 to 25 from outside the EEA pay €20. Bring each child's ID, since the Louvre asks for proof of age.

The towers are a hard climb for small children. The site warns that the 424 steps include narrow spaces and low ceilings, and it advises young children not to make the climb.

For a park afternoon, the Jardin du Luxembourg has ponies, a puppet theatre and toy sailboats. The Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th arrondissement has playgrounds, swings, sandpits and merry-go-rounds. Its island, Temple de la Sibylle and waterfalls are closed because of unstable ground. On the Vedettes du Pont Neuf cruise, child tickets cost €9, or €7 online.

Paris at night: late openings, river cruises and a sparkling tower

Five picks in the list above work for an evening out. They are the Louvre's two late openings a week, the Vedettes du Pont Neuf night cruise, Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe terrace and the sparkling Eiffel Tower. From April to September, the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre-Dame towers stay open until 11 p.m. All year, Sacré-Coeur stays open until midnight on the first Thursday of each month.

The Government of Canada says pickpocketing is frequent, that thieves often target tourists and that petty crime is common on public transport. It also warns that illegal taxis work Paris airports and train stations, and tells travellers at airports to take taxis only from official stations.

Paris in winter: free first Sundays and shorter hours

From November to March, the first Sunday of the month is the cheapest day for sightseeing. Every first-Sunday free entry in the price table above falls in these months.

Hours are shorter in winter: Sainte-Chapelle closes at 5 p.m. and the Notre-Dame towers at 5:30 p.m. The Louvre, Sainte-Chapelle, the Notre-Dame towers and the Versailles palace all close on 25 December and 1 January. The Arc de Triomphe closes early, at 4 p.m., on 24 and 31 December 2026.

The official site of Monet's house and gardens at Giverny gives its 2026 season as 1 April to 1 November. Check the next season's dates there before you plan a trip.

Day trips from Paris by train, from Chartres to Giverny

The list above covers Versailles. These four also fit in a day from Paris, though Giverny has a set season.

• Chartres. Trains from Paris-Montparnasse take about an hour each way. The cathedral is free and open every day from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Its stained glass dates from the 12th and 13th centuries, and the cathedral calls it the largest collection in the world.
• Reims. The TGV from Paris takes 45 minutes, says the Reims tourist office. The cathedral dates from the 13th century, and the tourist office lists cellar visits at the big Champagne houses and small producers.
• Giverny. Direct TER trains from Paris Saint-Lazare reach Vernon-Giverny station in an hour at most. In its 2026 season, Monet's house and gardens opened daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last entry at 5:30 p.m. and adult tickets at €13.
• Saint-Denis. The Basilica of Saint-Denis, the royal necropolis, is on the Paris Museum Pass.

The Château de Versailles asks visitors to check live traffic and planned works on transilien.com or the SNCF Connect and Île-de-France Mobilités apps before they travel. Those apps need mobile data outside Paris too, and mobile data plans for France work wherever Orange's network reaches in France, not only in Paris.

Check Canada's travel advice for France before you go

On 27 October 2026, the Government of Canada advised Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in France due to the threat of terrorism. It also noted that strikes occur regularly, especially in transport, and can disrupt public services. Canadian citizens need no visa for stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period in the Schengen area. The EU's Entry/Exit System records your photo and fingerprints when you arrive. ETIAS, the EU's coming travel authorization, is not required yet. The Government of Canada says applications are not open and warns of fraudulent websites that claim to sell it. Read the full France page on travel.gc.ca before you go.

Three days in Paris, planned by area

Three days covers the main sights if you book time slots before you fly and group stops by area.

• Day 1, the Île de la Cité. Start at Notre-Dame, then Sainte-Chapelle at your booked time, and climb the Notre-Dame towers before they close. A twin ticket adds the Conciergerie to Sainte-Chapelle for €30 for Canadian adults. End with the Vedettes du Pont Neuf cruise from the island's tip.
• Day 2, the Louvre and the Tuileries. Pick a Wednesday or Friday to use the Louvre's late opening, walk the Tuileries Garden, and book the Orangerie or the Orsay for the afternoon. Skip Tuesday, when the Louvre is closed.
• Day 3, Montmartre and the Arc de Triomphe. See Sacré-Coeur in the morning, the Palais Garnier in the afternoon and the Arc de Triomphe terrace after dark. Time it for the top of the hour, when the Eiffel Tower sparkles for five minutes. Swap this day for Versailles if you prefer, on any day but Monday.

On the Métro and buses, validate your ticket and keep it until the end of the ride. The Government of Canada notes that the authorities check tickets at random and that you may be fined without a validated one.

Getting online in Paris without Bell or Rogers day fees

Canadian carriers charge by the day or sell passes for roaming in Europe, and our page on how an eSIM compares with roaming explains the difference. Bell's Roam Better costs C$16 a day in eligible destinations outside the U.S. Bell charges it on each day you make or answer a call, send a text or use data, and its day ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Bell caps the fee at 20 days per line in a billing period and slows data after 5 GB a day.

Check that France is on your carrier's list before you fly. If you keep your Bell line on for calls and texts, each call you make or answer starts that day's Roam Better fee. So does each text you send.

A HelloRoam Paris eSIM is a prepaid France plan on Orange's network, and it covers France only. Networks can change, and the Paris eSIM page shows the current one. If your trip continues beyond France, our guide to eSIM plans in Europe shows how to check that each country is covered.

Your phone must be carrier-unlocked and eSIM-ready, so check that your phone supports eSIM before you buy. Then estimate how much data you need for maps, tickets and calls home.